“Sorry, Ace, I gotta run,” I say, my voice tight as I force a polite smile. I’m friendly. I did care about him, and there was no bad blood between us, but the flirty energy he’s radiating feels wrong with Aston watching from fifty yards away. “It’s a prime-time broadcast. Things move fast down here.”
“Just five more minutes.” Ace laughs, reaching out to lightly tap the edge of my clipboard.
The thud of cleats getting closer makes me look over to where I see Aston crossing the field in long, deliberate strides, cutting through the sideline personnel and coaches. He doesn’t look like a guy coming to say hello to his twin brother. There’s something I can’t read in his eyes though.
I look at Aston, my eyes wide, sending him a silent,What should I do?
Aston’s face is dark, his eyes shifting from my face to his brother’s with a quiet intensity.
“It’s good to see you, Ace,” I say quickly, stepping back a full yard to break this weird little circle we’ve created with the three of us. “I need to get back to my crew. Good luck tonight, Aston.”
I turn on my heel before either of them can reply, my heart hammering against my ribs as I walk away. The silence behind me is louder than the eighty thousand people in the stands.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ASTON
“There he is!”
Ace’s voice is a cannon blast breaking through the tension, his face in a wide grin as I reach him. He doesn’t see the way my jaw is locked so tight I could crack a tooth. He just sees his carbon copy.
He lunges forward, throwing his arms around my shoulders. “Jesus, it’s cold here. I don’t know how you do it.” He laughs.
“Acer,” I rumble, wrapping one arm around his back, lifting him slightly off the ground out of pure reflex, but my eyes are tracking the woman moving down the sideline.
She doesn’t look back. Her head is down, and a pang of guilt leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, pulling back and slamming my hand against his shoulder hard enough to make him drop his aviators. “Thought you were staying in Florida for your bye week.”
“And miss a chance to see you and Beck go head-to-head? Not a chance.” Ace’s eyes are bright with that easy energy that makes him one of the golden boys of the family. He looks overmy shoulder. “Man, this place is electric. Oh, hey, why didn’t you tell me Eva was working your sideline? I nearly lost my mind when I saw her.”
My stomach clenches. “She’s with the network, Ace. She works a lot of the prime-time games.”
“Fuck me, she looks hot,” he says, shaking his head as he slaps my chest. “Seriously, she hasn’t changed a bit. Shit, don’t mind me. I’m distracting you. Go finish your warm-up. I’ll head over to see Beck real quick, then go up to the Grants’ box and come down at the end of the game.”
“Okay,” I say, my throat dry as sand. “See you after.”
The next three hours are a blur of white noise. I play like a man possessed, channeling the spike of adrenaline into every snap. I throw myself at Chicago’s center until his jersey is torn to shreds. I take a double-team block on a third and long and still manage to reach out and grab the quarterback’s ankle, pulling him down to the turf while the crowd roars.
But every time I walk to the bench, my eyes find her. She’s always on the move, completely out of reach. And every time I see her looking toward the bench, the question in her eyes is palpable.
When the final whistle blows, a 24–17 win secures our spot at the top of the division.
The locker room is vibrating, but I’m sitting at my cubby with an ice pack on my shoulder when my brother walks in alongside Liam. He has his arm slung over Ace’s, and they’re laughing about something.
Liam looks at me, a smirk on his face. “Hey, Aston. Your twin was practically hanging out of the box during that fourth-down sack.”
“I was excited. What can I say?” Ace chuckles, stepping into my space. “Good game, brother. You look almost as good as I do on the field.”
“Fuck off,” I say, a smile breaking through my exhaustion as I stand. “You staying the night or heading back to Florida?”
Ace looks at me like I’m crazy. “No way. I’m staying with you. I didn’t come all this way to turn around the same night. We need some twin time. Beers, steaks, family gossip.”
“Yeah, of course.” I force my voice to stay steady. “Let me shower, and then we can get out of here.”
My plan for tonight was to talk Eva into coming back to my place, but that’s not happening. Not that I’m not happy to see my twin, I just would have been a little more mentally prepared if he’d given me a heads-up.
Ace has already moved over to Liam’s cubby, and they’re laughing and distracted, so I grab my phone from the shelf and shoot a text off to Eva.
